By Shishir Prashant 
PrashantNews
The Uttarakhand STF on Friday claimed to have busted a gang involved in the trade of fake cigarettes and recovered 22,100 packets of a top branded company.
Acting on a tip-off, a joint team of STF, police and Lancer Network officials raided cigarette warehouses and shops in Dehradun, in which a large consignment of fake Gold Flake cigarettes was recovered from the warehouse of Nishant Traders located near Darshani Gate Gurudwara in Dehradun, STF Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Navneet Singh Bhullar said.
The STF has been getting information from Lancer Network Company authorized by ITC that some cigarette, tobacco and other products traders of Dehradun were selling fake cigarettes of Gold Flake and other branded companies and consignments of fake cigarettes could be found at their warehouses.
Bhullar said that preliminary investigation has revealed that these fake cigarettes were being manufactured without any legal permission and tax payment and were being supplied to other states including local markets.
He said it has been found that the sellers of fake cigarettes are an organized gang of traders who are associated with Muzaffarnagar in Utttar Pradesh and Delhi. These people mainly supply fake goods to traders in Uttarakhand. Other wholesalers like Nishant Traders in Uttarakhand buy fake cigarettes from the said persons at cheap rates and sell them to retailers as original and the transaction is done in cash instead of through bank, thereby earning huge profits by evading tax.
The police officer said that during the raid, a total of 22,100 packets of fake cigarettes of Gold Flake brand were recovered from the warehouse of Nishant Traders. These packets were confirmed to be fake after investigation by the company representatives. He said that the text written on the cigarette packet is fake which has been copied to look like original. Fake barcode brand logo and health warning were copied on the packets.
A case has been registered against Nishant Traders under appropriate sections of Copyright and BNS.
He said that the state government was being cheated by evading taxes worth lakhs of rupees through fake cigarettes while the health of the common people was also being played with.
He said that interrogation of the accused arrested by STF is going on and raids are being conducted at other places to connect the links of the entire network.